


Lifeline

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Lyrium Addiction, Near Death Experiences, Pining, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superhero AU.  Without lyrium, the best Cullen can do is stay on the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to 'Superheroes' by The Script on repeat and this AU just sorta. Happened.
> 
> Also I realized while I was writing this that nobody can stop me from just putting Varric/Bianca fluff in the background of everything I ever write. FANFICTION IS POWER.

Lyrium grants superpowers to those without, and offers an incredible boost to a metahuman's powers.

It is also intensely, sometimes fatally, addictive. To make matters worse, it's users are incredibly vulnerable to mind control. Most reports of metahuman mind control include the victim breaking free as soon as they fall unconscious- not so with lyrium users.

Seth Amladaris, who calls himself Corypheus like some sort of cartoonish super-villain, has put the city of Orlais into complete lockdown using lyrium addicts alone.

So it's probably for the best that Cullen has been going cold turkey ever since he overdosed during the metahuman riots in Kirkwall last year. Right now, though, he doesn't _feel_ lucky. He feels helpless, hidden away in the team's warehouse headquarters instead of involved in the fighting. 

On the monitor in front of him is the feed from a hacked street camera. The pavement it's pointed at is splattered with a sickening amount of blood. A lot of it is Dorian's, and all Cullen can do is pray that the motionless body of his friend still has a heartbeat. The still-conscious members of the team have formed a protective ring around their downed teammate, but they aren't looked too much better. Iron Bull, whose civilian identity Cullen doesn't know, was flanked on his blind side early on in the fight. He'd donated a good deal of blood to the mess on the pavement before Dorian had burned the wound closed. Cullen suspects he's running on rage alone at this point. Varric is close to useless at close range and Evelyn... God, _Evelyn_.

Evelyn Trevelyan is their most vital agent in the field, the only one able to neutralize Corypheus' influence in civilians before it sinks in and starts to mutate them. She takes priority, and Cullen is the best comms guy they've got. The two of them have spent a lot of long nights chatting over the radio, whether Evelyn was out with a patrol, helping civilians or repairing their lines to the street cameras.

And, God help him, he's in love with her. He's in love with the little snort she uses in place of a real laugh, with the gentle kindness her voice takes on when she's speaking to frightened civilians, with her warm hands on his shoulders after a patrol, with the concern in her expression when she asks him when he last ate or slept, with the way she discarded 'Mr. Rutherford' a week in and with the way she says 'Cullen' like something special.

He loves her, she trusts him, and he can do _nothing_.

One of her arms is broken, cradled close to her side. She's off balance and she's dropped the sword she usually uses to back up her dangerously situational superpower. She's taking potshots at monstrosities Cullen can only guess used to be his fellow cops with the green glow of her left hand, but he knows she can't keep that up for long.

Sure enough, she stops firing and raises her hand to her ear, clicking on the comm line. Cullen can hear the desperation in her voice as it filters into his headset.

"Cullen, I need a plan! Anything, give me anything!" She shouts, and on the screen, Cullen sees her drop her hand to fire another pulse of light at an approaching enemy. He watches as she takes two steps back towards Dorian, so close now that she's almost standing on him. Cullen has no plans to give her; even if they abandoned Dorian, which they won't, they'd never be able to protect their backs during an escape.

But he can't tell her that, so he gives her an update on what she already knows.

“Cassandra, Blackwall and Solas are on their way, ETA is 6 minutes, if you can hold on until then--”

“Cullen, we don't _have_ six minutes!” Evelyn shouts, too loud in his headset. He knows. He knows they don't have six minutes. On the monitor, her hand is literally smoking. They can't retreat back any farther.

Cullen is paralyzed, struck silent by the inevitable.

“What was that you said about Kirkwall? About spite?” Evelyn's voice is oddly calm when she talks again. Cullen feels cold under his skin. She's talking about his overdose-- they'd lost control, people were dying, and he'd taken all of his lyrium, to try to take as many of the monsters people had been mutating into with him when he'd gone down.

He'd admitted to her, one late night when she'd been running errands, that in the moment he'd done it more out of spite than anything else.

“Evelyn--” Cullen chokes out, and the woman on the other end of the line laughs, sad and desperate.

“This isn't your fault, Cullen. Let's just... go down fighting, right?” Her voice is strained, but she doesn't falter.

Cullen opens his mouth to say _something_ , but at that moment, the camera abruptly cuts out. Evelyn's audio feed last another few seconds, in which Bull shouts out a whole variety of curses and Evelyn herself makes a startled noise.

“Who was that?! Cullen, did you--”

And then that's gone too, and Cullen finds himself staring numbly at a blank screen. There's noise from the next room, and Josephine is at his door.

“Cullen, is your equipment-- Oh dear,” She breathes, and then she's out the door again. There are footsteps in the hallway, accompanied by loud, frantic conversation. Cullen swallows hard on the instinct to cry, to curl up on himself and _break_. They can't stop.

*

The reinforcements reach Evelyn's team. Cassandra's voice over the line tells them everything.

They find the corrupted police dead, either torn up from familiar combat wounds or with their throats cut. Cassandra and Blackwall stay to investigate the ambush, but Solas comes back with the team, continually refreshing the invisible barriers he put up to stop Dorian's bleeding.

Cullen's hands shake as he finishes issuing orders to his replacement at the comms; he's desperate to see Evelyn, to have solid, physical evidence that she isn't dead. He rushes through the hallways, ignoring anyone he walks past. The entire ground team is still in their makeshift medical bay, so he heads straight there.

The mood of the room is grim. All the medical staff are focused on Dorian, and there's a loud argument going on in the next room that seems to be about blood transfusions. Iron Bull is a silent presence at Dorian's bedside, his left side hastily bandaged, probably by one of the other fighters. The edges of the nasty burn and the cut it cauterized peek over the top of the gauze. Cullen doesn't spend much time examining the two men, but he thinks Bull is holding Dorian's hand. He leaves them be.

He finds Evelyn sitting with Varric in the back of the room. Varric's wife, Bianca, is doing tune-up work on his crossbow with her husband's arm around her waist. Evelyn is watching them vacantly, her arm in a splint and her hair matted with dried blood. At the sound of his footsteps, she looks up.

The change in his injured friend is immediate. Her eyes light up for a brief moment before they cloud over with unshed tears. He wonders what she sees in his face.

“Thank God you're alive--” He starts, just before she presses herself into his chest. Her usable hand fists in the back of his shirt and Cullen gingerly wraps his arms around her, careful not to put pressure on the broken arm. He tucks his face into her hair. She smells like blood, with a horrible undercurrent of lyrium burn.

Evelyn trembles in his arms for a few long minutes, and for once, he isn't self-conscious about how he aches to hold her. Finally, she gives a shaky sigh and pulls away from him, her eyes darting over to Dorian's bed.

“I need to talk to you. Not here,” She tells him, and gives Varric and Bianca a nod of farewell before she turns towards the door. Cullen follows briskly after her.

“Shouldn't we wait until someone's properly set your arm?” He asks, and Evelyn shakes her head without looking back at him.

“Bianca's handiwork will hold. They need to focus on Dorian right now.”

There's anguish in her voice and Cullen finds himself echoing her words from earlier.

“It isn't your fault, Evelyn.”

She _does_ turn to look at him now, her face twisted up with frustration and pain.

“It _is_ my fault, Cullen! I'm in charge. I should have seen the ambush coming, or kept them off Bull, or noticed that Dorian's back was open while he was closing that wound, or--”

“ _Evelyn_ ,” Cullen says firmly, and she stops talking. She runs her left hand through her hair, biting her lower lip.

“You got them out. God help me, I don't know how you did it, but you did,” He tells her, letting his voice drop into something softer. To his surprise, Evelyn starts laughing, broken and humorless.

“Except that I _didn't_. We're settling in to die and then poof! Out of nowhere some kid in a hat shows up and he just just-- kills _everyone_ , hands Bull a bunch of gauze for Dorian, tells us to be careful around sewer drains and vanishes! I'm starting to think I hallucinated the whole thing!” Her voice gets more high-pitched and hysterical as she goes on-- it's very clear the whole experience has thrown her off-kilter.

Cullen, however, puts the pieces together almost immediately.

“Someone shut off our feeds to _help_ you?” He asks, incredulously. A flash of startled confusion goes across Evelyn's face.

“The feeds cut out?” She breathes, sounding like someone's punched her in gut. Cullen doesn't understand the reaction.

“You didn't wonder why we stopped trying to contact you?” He asks. Evelyn exhales audibly.

“I thought... I thought you didn't want to watch,” She whispers, just loudly enough for him to hear her. “I wouldn't have blamed you for it.”

“I would never leave you,” Cullen blurts out without thinking, and Evelyn's eyes jump to his, something fragile in her expression. “Nothing would hurt me more than losing you but I would never abandon you for my own sake. _Never_.”

He doesn't catch the moment when she moves, but he does feel it as her good hand slides along the back of his neck. She must be up on her toes because she only has to pull him down the slightest bit, but he doesn't fight it, lets the kiss happen. He takes her face in both of his hands and kisses her back, stroking gently with his thumbs.

When they break apart, she smiles dreamily up at him in the dim light of the hallway, his hands still resting gently on her cheeks.

They are interrupted by a cough from down the hall. Evelyn tugs away from Cullen's grip to look at Josephine, who is clutching her clipboard to her chest.

“Miss Trevelyan, there is a young man here to see you. Do you know a Cole? He's... brought medical supplies for Dorian. God only knows how he knew about the incident--”

And Evelyn is off down the hall.


End file.
